Funding for embattled cancer agency in peril

Updated 10:43 pm, Monday, January 14, 2013

The Texas cancer agency would absorb a devastating funding cut under starting-point state budgets filed Monday, a clear signal of the Legislature's displeasure with the turmoil-ridden initiative.

House and Senate budget bills provide no money for new grants by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the target of multiple investigations following revelations of procedural problems and conflicts of interest related to multimillion-dollar grants it has awarded.

"I'm hopeful we will reach an agreement not only in the Senate but in the House on governance changes to CPRIT that will again capture the trust and confidence of the people of Texas," said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. unveiling the Senate bill. "But I felt strongly we should stop the process to make any necessary changes" resulting from the investigations. "Then we will move forward with full dispatch."

Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, author of the House bill, issued a news release linking the lack of CPRIT grant money in the legislation to an ongoing moratorium on new grants "until the agency can prove that the grant-award process is transparent and accountable to taxpayers."

Also on Monday, the Legislative Budget Board recommended allocating CPRIT $5 million for each year of the biennium, down from the nearly $300 million the agency annually receives. The board provides advice to the House and Senate.

Starting-point budgets typically are dramatically different from final budgets - committee memberships have yet to be selected, for instance - but the symbolism behind the proposed lack of funding was not lost on the agency's top officials.

"We have until May to show the Legislature we will carry out its wishes the way they want them carried out," said Wayne Roberts, CPRIT's newly named interim executive director. "Those bills show the Legislature's concern, their need for assurance that this agency has proper controls in place to ensure money is allocated appropriately."

Roberts, a seasoned Capitol insider closely aligned with Gov. Rick Perry, said he'd have recommended the same thing.

Bill Miller, a spokesman for CPRIT board chairman Jimmy Mansour, said Mansour "understands the Legislature creating this starting point, which tells one and all that its confidence must be earned back by right actions and truthful, full explanations for what's previously occurred."

"He is fully on-board with that plan," Miller said.

CPRIT, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2007, awards up to $300 million a year in grants aimed at discovering cancer cures. The Legislature must appropriate the funding to allow the state to issue $600 million in bonds for grants over the coming two years.

The agency attracted little attention until 2012, when a rapid series of events prompted widespread scrutiny of its actions.

First, a hasty, $20 million grant to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University prompted the resignation of the agency's Nobel Laureate chief scientific advisor and, ultimately, most of his blue-ribbon peer review panel. Then in November, it was revealed that an $11 million grant to a Dallas biotech start-up never received internal review. Both projects have been halted.

The agency's problems are proving so vexing to Roberts and his new senior adviser, former Deputy Comptroller Billy Hamilton, that this week's CPRIT board meeting has been cancelled. Roberts said he and Hamilton are still trying to digest information so they can provide the board with a plan to fix the agency's problems.

The lack of CPRIT funding in the initial budgets got a mixed reaction from the authors of the legislation that created the agency. Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said she is "concerned about this strategy because I want the world to know that Texas will continue to lead in our strong commitment to fighting cancer."

But Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, said that "under the circumstances, I can understand where Rep. Pitts is coming from. We obviously have a lot of work to do to regain people's trust."

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